The Angels announced a series of pitching moves today, including designating righty Deolis Guerra for assignment. Los Angeles also optioned right-hander Mike Morin, replacing those two arms with closer Huston Street — who had been on the DL — and lefty Chris Jones, who gets his first MLB call-up.
Guerra, 27, has been hit hard in two brief stints in the majors over the past two seasons. All told, he’s allowed 16 earned runs in just 22 big league frames, with a more promising 21:3 K/BB ratio. Guerra has been rather dominant at the Triple-A level of late, however.
Los Angeles will be glad to welcome back Street, who last pitched on April 23rd and has been rehabbing an oblique injury. The 32-year-old had been as effective as ever in the early going: despite recording only four strikeouts in his 7 2/3 innings of work before hitting the DL, Street had allowed only one earned run on four hits while picking up a handful of saves. Fill-in ninth-inning man Joe Smith had permitted seven earned runs over his 12 1/3 innings in May, though he also converted five of six save opportunities in the last month.
The 25-year-old Morin has shown promise at times — he carried a 2.90 ERA over 59 frames in 2014 and racked up 10.4 K/9 against just 2.3 BB/9 in 35 1/3 innings last year — but his results have lagged of late. On the year, he’s been touched for a 5.48 ERA in 21 1/3 frames, with 7.6 K/9 against 2.1 BB/9.
Jones hasn’t exactly had the best of years at Triple-A since being acquired from the Orioles late this spring. He’s generally been effective there in the past, but currently owns a 6.32 ERA over 47 innings with 5.9 K/9 against 2.7 BB/9.
And we just keep on playing musical chairs…
Both Neil Cotts and Alburquerque would had been better choices to call up instead of Guerra… I quite never understood the move…
He’s a Rule 5 guy, makes sense to see how he fares vs major leaguers. He’s looked pretty good at times IMO.
Kind of surprised by Morin’s struggles. Still hold out hope that he can be a rock solid pen piece in the near future.
Morin really isn’t struggling that much. His numbers have been ballooned by a few bad outings. But he also has a lot of appearances for it only being May. But that’s also a product of a rotation depleted by injuries.
I’m puzzled by the Cotts move myself, but I think Alburquerque was sent back down when the Halos needed a bench player and had to open up that 40 man spot to do so.
The merry-go-round continues. Who’s next?